Well...I bought a 4506-1 almost 30 years ago and love the gun but hated the trigger. No big deal since it sat in my safe for years till I decided to start deer hunting with a .45 Super and the Smith was the only auto I had that I felt sure could take the pounding. Sooo...back comes the ****** single action trigger. Some experimenting lead me to believe that the majority of the problem was the ****** firing pin blocking piston. Sure enough when I removed it the single action trigger was immediately better and lighter! Problem was that every so often, not all the time, when the trigger was pulled in single action a "click" occurred just prior to hammer fall. I could probably have just lived with it but it was driving me crazy I had to find out what it was! The problem turned out to be the final (second) step of the trigger draw bar and the double action (second) hammer hook! Just before the draw bar finally moved the sear enough to drop the hammer it just "kissed" over the final double action hook on the hammer! That was making the click. Properly timed the draw bar should not even engage the hammer hooks when the hammer is manually cocked to the single action position but it sure enough drug during he 0.002 travel of the sear before hammer fall. I carefully reduced the second double action catch on the drawbar by about a 0.001" and that solved the problem in single action without effecting double action pull. I just wanted to share so others that might run into this problem will not pull their hair out like I did.

Well...I have to admit that I totally screwed up! In the post above I thought that the trigger bar was bumping over the second double action hook on the hammer when the hammer was in the single action cocked position. After making the modifications the "click" went away for a while but today during some dry firing it returned! Dang! Tore gun apart and was also tearing out quantities of hair at the same time. Started looking at everything and with slide off noticed that when the trigger was fully reset to the front and slowly pulled, sometimes the nose of the draw bar would pop up right before the hammer fell and made the dreaded "click". More looking after more disassembly showed the trigger and draw bar engagement surfaces were very rough and sharp. On full reset the trigger engaged the draw bar "Vee" notch high and just before hammer fall it would finally slide down into the bottom of the notch causing the click! Slightly rounding the trigger engagement hooks and polishing the Vee notch on the draw bar finally put this problem to bed. I tried it about 100 times after this work and NO click. I hope this was the cure. If you have this problem please benefit from my pitiful experience.

I really wish you would have asked about this before undertaking modifications to the gun.

The trigger 'click' you describe is a well known and very common issue with these guns. It is caused by a damaged or bent trigger play spring. That's the tiny copper colored leaf spring affixed to the drawbar with a tiny rivet. That spring is easily bent, often by overzealous cleaning methods or improper handling. The trigger play spring's purpose is to apply forward pressure to the trigger hooks thereby keeping the trigger in close contact with the drawbar. One can instantly wreck that spring by pressing forward on the trigger with the hammer cocked. In doing so, the trigger hooks will bend the spring rearward and introduce a bunch of slack at the trigger/drawbar interface causing the dreaded annoying trigger click.

Here's a pic representing the relationship of these parts. Note the trigger play spring in the pic is no good and needs to be replaced.


And from another angle... See how the lower legs of the spring are not in contact with the drawbar. That spring has been bent out of shape and back too many times. It cannot be made to work and needs replacing.


When that spring is bent, the trigger tends to flap about and the hooks ride upward out of the drawbar notch. The click is observed when one applies rearward pressure to take up the trigger slack and the hooks 'snap' into the drawbar notch.

The proper corrective action here would have been the pull the drawbar and replace the trigger play spring. However now that you have modified the hammer's pick-up notch along with the trigger & drawbar, I don't know. My sense is that the problem is merely covered up...like painting over rust, it'll be back. Modifying the hammer notches or sear angles should never be undertaken lightly and then only with the proper fixtures, tooling & stones and knowledge of course.

I also strongly recommend you re-install the firing pin safety mechanism. Without it the gun is no longer drop safe and can be bumped off with a sufficient strike to a cocked hammer.

I apologize if I sound overly critical in all this but I think this is of such import I ought to speak up. I don't want anything bad to happen.

Cheers
Bill

__________________
Because they don't make a .46

Bill you are correct in that more pressure by the little brass fingers should keep the trigger hooks down in the Vee notch and probably would except that over time (30 years almost) the spring lost some of its "spring" and the Vee notch was rough as a cobb just because S&W did not want to take the time or expense to smooth it a little. The brass fingers are riveted in and cannot easily be replaced and I did try to bend them forward a little but was afraid to go too far because if I broke them then I would have been up the creek. I can assure you I did NOT reduce the height of ANY of the hammer hooks only polished the last engagement surface of the draw bar down maybe .001" and the double action function works just fine. As far as the firing pin block removal I fully well know what can happen by removing it and that is why I said I would only do this for a hunting gun. I plan to carry the weapon with the safety (hammer block/decocker) on and cock by thumb when ready to shoot. The firing pin block has a suck effect on the single action pull of the trigger because it, unlike the Colt series 80 guns, almost fully lifts just before the sear disengages so it has a more pronounced effect on the trigger pull. For its intended purpose the system works fine but I wanted a lighter trigger for hunting and did not want to reduce the sear engagement surface by filing down the hammer hook (the typical procedure for a 1911) since the hammer hook was ALREADY only about 0.020". So I experimented by removing the firing pin block and it made quite a difference. Many people also remove them from their series 80 Colts as well for the same purpose. BUT you bring up very valid points and good information and are much appreciated by myself and the members of this forum. Thanks!